Today I’m going to write about one example which I’ve been meaning to address for some time: pseudoscientific claims about the genetic distinctiveness of the Paracas peoples. (Please note that I don’t usually show images of Native American remains on this blog, but there was no other way to illustrate the details of this issue. Under the cut is an embedded video of the unwrapping of a Paracas mummy, as well as a photo with the mummy under its wrappings.)

Many ancient societies in North and South America practiced cultural modification to the crania of their infants, resulting in distinctive skull shapes in the adult population. This practice took several different forms, as anatomist Dr. Valerie Dean O’Loughlin notes in her 2003 paper Effects of Different Kinds of Cranial Deformation on the Incidence of Wormian Bones. (p147)

Cultural cranial deformation could be intentionally induced in a variety of ways (Dingwall, 1931; Dean, 1995a). The vault could be tightly encircled by bandages, producing a cylindrical or conical head shape (e.g., in South America). Securing the skull between two boards flattened those portions of the head in direct contact with the boards (e.g., on the Northwest Coast of North America). In some cultures, the deformation may have been unintentional, as when an infant was secured on a cradleboard for a long period of time, consequently flattening the back of the head (e.g., the Southwest US)

Reasons for modifying cranium shape were varied and sometimes culture-specific (Dingwall, 1931; Topinard, 1879; Dean, 1995a). Northwest Coast, Columbian, and Peruvian cultures viewed males who had deformed skulls as more brave and powerful. Most cultures that practiced intentional molding viewed a “molded” head as a sign of high status. Often, slaves were not allowed to practice cultural cranial deformation, and so their head shape was a physical sign of their social status (e.g., Northwest Coast). In addition, culturally modified skulls were viewed as a sign of beauty, and the more marked the deformation, the more beautiful the person was regarded as being.

The Paracas peoples, who occupied the southern coast of Peru between 800-100 BCE, are among the best-known practitioners of this custom. Makers of sophisticated textiles, and the forebearers of the Nasca culture, they have long attracted the attention of fringe theorists, who attribute their cranial modifications to a different ancestry from other Native American peoples. Their elongated crania have been variously explained as aliens, a separate human species, a “hybrid race” of super-human Nephilim , and all sorts of other nonsense.

Some number of the Paracas crania, excavated by Julio Cesar Tello in the 1920s have been on display in a private museum, owned by Juan Navarro Hierro. Several years ago, tour guide Brien Foerster sent skeletal samples from some of these crania to an anonymous geneticist and received a report that they “had mtDNA with mutations unknown in any human, primate or animal known so far.” Foerster made much of these results in books and interviews, which—along with the procedures used to obtain them and the identity of the geneticist–remain unpublished. This is a classic case of science-by-press release, and Ken Fitzpatrick-Matthews has an excellent rundown of this debacle on his blog Bad Archaeology, as does Doubtful News.

Recently I’ve been hearing claims about new DNA tests on the Paracas skulls put out by L.A. Marzulli in podcast interviews promoting his book Nephilim Hybrids: Hybrids, Chimeras, & Strange Demonic Creatures. In one interview he insisted that the newest DNA tests were conducted completely legitimately and under strict anti-contamination protocols, and yet the results showed that they were Nephilim/European hybrids. I was interested, so I read his book to see exactly what they did. Their approach serves as an excellent teaching opportunity in evaluating ancient DNA research.

Evidently there were two sets of DNA tests. The first round, which is what the bloggers above discuss, was conducted some time ago by an anonymous geneticist, who Marzulli says was fired for continuing to work on the Paracas skulls after his supervisors told him to stop. The new tests, results of which Marzulli published in his new book, were performed on a culturally modified cranium from a ‘private collection in Oregon’ that someone inherited from his grandfather, who had allegedly obtained it in Peru. (This work on privately “owned” human remains, presumably without consultation and for the explicit purpose of promoting pseudoscience, is insanely unethical).

Marzulli insists that the aDNA tests were conducted by a legitimate laboratory, and included their reports in the appendix of the book. I looked up who did it, and he’s right: they’re a legit commercial ancient DNA service. Out of professional courtesy I’m not going to post their name here, because if I were in their position I would hate to be associated with this nonsense. (It’s easy enough to find out who they are, if you really want to know.) Based on their reports to him, they cautioned him extensively about their concerns regarding contamination of the sample, and he ignored those cautions to promote his own ideas.

I’m going to take you through what Marzulli claims they did to obtain the bone and hair samples in both sets of tests, and show you where they failed to take some crucial measures to prevent contamination. First, let’s take a look at his and Foerster’s original attempt to sample DNA from an individual in the private Peruvian museum. Marzulli describes it this way in his book: “The lab told us the sample may have been contaminated. However, I was there and watched the proceedings, and the hair that came off of the skull while Joe Taylor was unwrapping it was put immediately into a collection bag.” He reports that the anonymous technician who did this work recovered mt haplogroup U2e1 from the remains, and that this DNA was absolutelynot contamination.

There is no discussion of the laboratory methods, so I’m unable to evaluate them (always a red flag with ancient DNA work). However, the sampling procedure is documented in this video (Warning: watching this completely unnecessary destruction of a child’s remains is difficult.) .

It’s very clear where the contamination took place. I’m going to annotate a screen capture of one frame to illustrate. (Note: This image does show part of a child’s mummy. The wrappings are intact in this frame).

As you can see from the image, the individuals attempting to sample DNA from this mummy made some attempt to cover themselves, but it’s entirely inadequate for ancient DNA work. There is exposed skin on every individual in the room, the gentleman’s beard and hair are uncovered, and at one point they start squirting water all over the mummy, claiming that because it’s distilled, it won’t introduce contamination. Wrong. All water used in ancient DNA work has to be purchased from vendors who guarantee that it’s certified DNA free. Distilled water has lots of DNA present in it. Any one of these things could have (and probably did) introduced contamination to the sample they tested.

By contrast, here is what I wear when sampling for ancient DNA analysis in the field (no human remains are visible in this image):

Some exposure of the face is unavoidable, but is kept to a minimum with a head covering that also hides the ears, forehead, and hair. I don’t stick my face directly over the tissue I’m sampling, I don’t allow any portion of my hands, wrists, or arms to go uncovered, and I certainly don’t squirt water on the sample. Once collected, the sample (bone) is immediately put into a sealed, sterile bag, and not opened again until it’s inside the sterile ancient DNA isolation laboratory. Then it’s thoroughly bleached and UV irradiated to remove surface contamination. (Also, please note that this sampling and analysis was done with the permission of the descendant community).

In their second attempt to retrieve Nephilim DNA from individuals from culturally modified crania—this time, from the skull in someone’s private collection– Marzulli claims that they sampled the remains wearing a full body suit, face mask, sleeves, gloves, and shoe coverings, and that “enabled us to reduce contamination, however, this artifact had been handled by numerous people over the years, and we have come to understand that just breathing on it can contaminate it.” Note that although he claims they have come to understand this, he never admits that contamination was likely responsible for the results of the first test of the child’s mummy.

There are ways to mitigate surface contamination, but based on his description of how they sampled the cranium, he doesn’t employ them. Using a Dremmel tool, he says they drilled into the skull, “cleaned the area” with compressed air, changed drill bits and then drilled out powdered bone from the skull. Blowing compressed air into the hole will do exactly the same thing that squirting water does: introduce DNA. No bleach or UV were used to decontaminate either the tools used to collect the bone sample, nor the sample itself. Also, photographs of the cranium (which I’m not going to show, as per my policy of minimizing the use of images of indigenous human remains) show it to be extremely shiny, as if it has some kind of varnish on them. If that’s the case, there are likely layers of contaminating DNA deposited on the surface of that bone, effectively sealed in by that varnish.

The technician who did the DNA extraction and work on the samples notes the same thing in his or her report (included in Marzulli’s book)

Without physically seeing the item itself, I can only guess that the skull was heavily handled over the years. Therefore any surface of the skull that is exposed to the environment could be contaminated. If the powder from the interior of the skull was just scraped off the interior surface, we could just be looking at surface contamination even though it was from inside the skull cavity. There is also no way of knowing how much contaminant DNA can leech into a sample from the surface. It is also possible that the tools used to remove the powder were not sterile and contained exogenous (outside the sample) DNA.

Finally—and very importantly—it is standard for ancient DNA researchers to sequence their own DNA, and that of the archaeologists, biological anthropologists, and anyone else who may have handled the remains, in order to rule out that any results might be inadvertent contamination from them. Marzulli, Foerster, and others involved have never done that. This is important because the laboratory detected two different mitochondrial haplogroups in the samples Marzulli sent: T2b, and B4. It’s impossible to know whether either haplogroup was introduced by the persons involved in sampling. As a reviewer I wouldn’t accept either result as endogenous DNA: it would need to be redone under proper conditions, verified by at least two independent extractions, and include comparative sequences from the individuals sampling the DNA to ensure that the sequences recovered weren’t from them.

That being said, Marzulli’s response to the results provided to him was fascinating. He notes that “The bottom line is that mitochondrial DNA was found from the powder and it was haplogroup T2b,” which is not an autochthonous Native American maternal lineage. This result fits with his mythology that the Paracas people “arrived roughly 3,500 years ago, which fits the timeline of the diaspora from the Levant of Promised Land perfectly.”

Marzulli completely ignored the finding of haplogroup B, which is quite common in South America, presumably because it would fit with the archaeological interpretation that these individuals are indigenous to the region.He wants to believe that the Paracas individuals are genetically different, because that is required by his worldview:

I believe the Nephilim tribes fled, and some went north into Europe while others traveled the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic; and then, as Thor Heyerdahl proved in his bestselling book Ra, all one needed to do was set sail, and the trade winds would push you to the island of Barbados in the ‘New World’

He concludes by saying: “People will complain that the sample was contaminated. They’ll tell us the results were skewed. They’ll come up with every excuse imaginable in order to keep the evidence from the public.”

Yes, that’s exactly what we’re saying. All the samples taken were almost certainly contaminated, as I’ve shown you in some detail. There are tried and true ways of preventing and detecting contamination, but they were not employed here.

It’s perhaps also noteworthy that a very large section of his new book is devoted to discussing the “demon fairy” discovered in Mexico*….which he has just admitted was a fraud. This collapse of his evidence doesn’t seem to have deterred him from his belief in the reality of Nephilim. Nor do I expect that my discussion here will deter him.

I took a long time to write this post, because I kept wondering if it would do more harm than good to bring attention to Marzulli and Foerster’s outrageous claims. But ultimately I decided that this was a good example to use in teaching some basic concepts in ancient DNA research. I hope that interested readers will be better equipped to think critically about ancient DNA claims in the future. Ancient DNA is a useful tool, but only when it’s employed under the most stringent conditions. You simply can’t be sloppy with these methods, or you’ll end up with meaningless results.

*I swear I’m not making this up. He really talks about it as if it’s important evidence of his Nephilim idea. Demon. Fairy.

Finally, I’m actually giving a talk about genetic mythologies, including Nephilim claims, at this year’s Skepticon on November 12th in case you’re interested in hearing more.

Tagged: ancient DNA, anthropological genetics, anthropology, archaeology, genetics, Nephilim, Paracas, Peru]]>https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/09/20/genetic-mythologies-nephilim-dna-from-the-paracas-skulls/feed/247749142046_259c1527c8_zbatgirlraffScreen Shot 2016-09-20 at 6.37.56 AM.pngFieldworkArchaeological Fantasies and the genetic history of the Americashttps://violentmetaphors.com/2016/08/15/archaeological-fantasies-and-the-genetic-history-of-the-americas/
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/08/15/archaeological-fantasies-and-the-genetic-history-of-the-americas/#commentsMon, 15 Aug 2016 14:39:30 +0000http://violentmetaphors.com/?p=3618Continue reading →]]>The excellent podcast Archaeological Fantasies recently had me on as a guest for a wide ranging discussion on genetics. We covered everything from the genetic prehistory of the Americas to issues surrounding ancestry testing companies. Here’s a link to the episode (apologies for the fact that I kept cutting in and out–apparently our university wireless connection isn’t very good).

Since so much of our discussion focused on haplogroup X2a and models for ancient American prehistory, I decided to break from the normal tradition here at VM and actually re-publish a post to make it easier for people to get answers to any questions they might have. And if you have specific questions about content from the podcast, please feel free to leave them in the comments on this post.

This post was originally published last year to address some questions that Deborah Bolnick and I were getting about our paper “Does Mitochondrial Haplogroup X Indicate Ancient Trans-Atlantic Migration to the Americas? A Critical Re-Evaluation.” I’ve edited it slightly to reflect the fact that the paper itself is now open access, and you should be able to download it here or at my academia.edu page. (I’m actually really shocked at the number of downloads it’s gotten…apparently this is a topic that a lot of people find interesting!).

As soon as my syllabi for the upcoming semester are finished, I will try to write up another post that summarizes recent findings in North American anthropological genetics, and what they mean for our understanding of the initial peopling of the Americas. In the meantime, if you’re interested in ancient DNA I highly recommend you get up to speed on some of the methods by reading this post.

We reviewed existing genetic data to answer the question: Could mitochondrial haplogroup X2a have been brought to the Americas by an ancient trans-Atlantic migration? This is a rather old question from the perspective of anthropological geneticists, but we’ve seen it appear in both academic publications and documentaries rather frequently. We thought it was worth revisiting in light of recent genetic publications.

Quite simply, we found that mitochondrial and genomic data do not support this migration hypothesis as the most plausible explanation for X2a’s presence in North America. Instead, the most parsimonious interpretation of the genetic data continues to be that haplogroup X2a had the same migration history and ancestry as the other founder Native American mitochondrial lineages (i.e., from Siberia). Based on the current evidence, we feel that there is no need to invoke a distinct origin for individuals bearing this lineage.

If you’d like another summary of the paper, Andy White wrote a very good blog post about it here.

How can you say that this proves once and for all that all Native Americans have exclusively Beringian ancestry when you haven’t sequenced all of them? Isn’t that unscientific?

We don’t say that. This work presents our best interpretation of all the genetic evidence currently available that are relevant to this question. In fact, we end the paper saying:

It is of course possible that genetic evidence of an ancient trans-Atlantic migration event simply has not been found yet. Should credible evidence of direct gene flow from an ancient Solutrean (or Middle Eastern) population be found within ancient Native American genomes, it would require the field to reassess the “Beringian only” model of prehistoric Native American migration. However, no such evidence has been found, and the Beringian migration model remains the best interpretation of the genetic, archaeological, and paleoclimate data to date.

We don’t think it’s likely that new evidence will suddenly crop up showing another source of ancestry for Native Americans, but it remains a formal, albeit remote, possibility. Should such evidence be found, it will require us to reexamine our models. But we can’t incorporate hypothetical results into our interpretations. That would be unscientific.

Doesn’t skeletal data contradict the Beringian hypothesis? What about the very early Paleoindians whose skulls look physically different from later and contemporary Native Americans? Aren’t they proof that Native Americans have European ancestry?

The skeletal data show changes over time in the cranial morphology of ancient Native American populations. It’s true that comparisons of skull shapes were, for a very long time, how anthropologists studied genetic relationships between populations. However, over the last few decades, we’ve developed the technology to assess biological relationships between individuals and populations by comparing genomes. It’s generally acknowledged that this is a more precise, direct means of assessing ancestry than morphology, which can be influenced by environmental, developmental, and cultural factors.

Furthermore, the genomes of several of the Paleoindians with differently shaped crania have been examined, and they show no evidence of different ancestry than later or contemporary Native Americans. For example, Kennewick Man, who we discuss in the paper, exhibited what some have described as “Caucasoid” cranial features. However, his overall genetic affinities group him with Siberians/East Asians, not Europeans. And his mitochondrial haplogroup is the most basal lineage of X2a so far observed. This result shows that X2a—and this Paleoindian cranial morphology—are compatible with Siberian ancestry.

Why the skulls of the earliest inhabitants of the Americas look different from the later indigenous inhabitants is a very interesting question. We suspect it has to do with evolutionary forces like selection or drift acting on morphology over millennia. Current genomic research just doesn’t show evidence that they had different ancestry from later Native American groups.

Isn’t it pretty well proven that Clovis technologies are descended from Solutrean technologies?

No. The majority of archaeologists think that the similarities between the Clovis and Solutrean points are either spurious or coincidental. Very, very few archaeologists interpret the data as supporting the Solutrean hypothesis. We don’t see the genetic evidence as supporting the Solutrean hypothesis either.

Archaeologists were wrong about the “Clovis First” hypothesis, so doesn’t that mean that you’re wrong too?

Why? These are two separate models. The model of Beringian genetic ancestry of Native Americans is not dependent on the Clovis First hypothesis; in fact, the same evidence from which the “Beringian Pause” model was developed—early coalescence dates of mitochondrial lineages and ancient DNA data—was an important component in overturning the Clovis First model.

In science, any hypothesis is falsifiable, and any model is provisional pending contradictory data. The overturning of the Clovis First model is a great example of the process working as it should.

Isn’t it unfair to critique the Solutrean hypothesis before it’s been fully “fleshed out?” There’s bound to be more data supporting it soon!

Any hypothesis is open to testing, otherwise it’s not scientific. And there’s no “waiting period” to protect a hypothesis until it’s gathered enough data to make it immune to criticism. This argument is a species of special pleading—no other idea in archaeology is treated this way.

What about the signal of “West Eurasian” ancestry seen in Native American genomes? Does it support a trans-Atlantic migration?

This finding has led to a lot of confusion among non-geneticists, and we address it in some detail in the paper. To summarize: Raghavan et al. (2014) and Rasmussen et al. (2014) studied the genomes of the Siberian Mal’ta individual and the Anzick-1 individual, respectively, and they found that a portion of their ancestry (between 14-38%) was derived from a population that also contributed alleles to the contemporary inhabitants of West Eurasia. Notably, the contemporary European gene pool appears to have emerged quite recently—within the last 8,000 years—as a result of significant migration and admixture events. We don’t know what the genomes of Solutrean peoples looked like, since none have been sequenced yet, but from these findings we predict that they would more closely resemble pre-Neolithic hunter-gatherers than contemporary Europeans [see Allentoft et al. 2015, Haak et al. 2015, and Lazaridis et al. 2014]. Importantly, based on the pre-Neolithic genomes that have been studied, it appears that these early European hunter-gatherers did not exhibit close genetic affinities to Native Americans.

Several studies have also formally tested the evolutionary relationships between Native American genomes and genomes from ancient and contemporary populations worldwide (see Rasmussen et al. 2015, Raghavan et al. 2015, and Lazardis et al. 2014). These studies have consistently showed that the model which best fits the current genetic data did not match the predictions of the Solutrean hypothesis. We discussed this in the paper, noting that the most supported model:

was one in which the population ancestral to Native Americans was derived from ancient North Eurasian and East Asian sources, while contemporary Europeans were derived from ancient North Eurasian and West Eurasian sources. In other words, gene flow was from the ancestral North Eurasian population into both the ancestral Native American and ancestral European populations. Lazaridis et al. (2014) did not find any evidence of Pleistocene gene flow directly from West Eurasians into Native Americans. Their model is also consistent with other studies, which have shown that 62-86% of Native American ancestry derives from East Asia.

Tagged: ancient DNA, anthropological genetics, Archaeological Fantasies, archaeology, communication, My research, podcast, science, Solutrean hypothesis]]>https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/08/15/archaeological-fantasies-and-the-genetic-history-of-the-americas/feed/94937_193455990525_4137773_nbatgirlraffGuest post by Rosi Sexton: Why ‘why’ mattershttps://violentmetaphors.com/2016/08/12/guest-post-by-rosi-sexton-why-why-matters/
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/08/12/guest-post-by-rosi-sexton-why-why-matters/#commentsFri, 12 Aug 2016 14:48:06 +0000http://violentmetaphors.com/?p=3602Continue reading →]]>A few days ago, I published this post about the pseudoscience I see frequently in MMA communities. For a different perspective, I invited former professional fighter, osteopath, and all around brilliant person Rosi Sexton to share her thoughts with us. While her position is a bit ‘softer’ than mine, I think it’s important to get a diversity of perspectives, particularly from people who are actually treating patients. Enjoy! –Jennifer

Cupping seems to be the new therapy buzzword around these Olympics. I’ve had a few discussions with people asking me what I think about all these athletes sporting cupping marks on their backs and shoulders. My answer? “Well, that depends”.

Let’s get a few things straight before I go any further. In common with most of the skeptics who have already commented on this latest trend, I think it’s very unlikely that cupping has much of a direct physiological effect. There’s no evidence to suggest that it affects the underlying tissues very much at all, never mind in a way that’s likely to be performance enhancing.

So case closed? Cupping is nonsense, as with so many other ‘trendy’ interventions.

Not so fast. In the absence of claims made for specific physical outcomes, cupping is just a physical activity. It makes no more sense to say that “cupping is nonsense”, any more than it makes sense to say that Morris dancing is nonsense: both activities seem a little odd to me, but if there are people who enjoy them for their own sake, then I’m not about to argue with their experience. Although I’ve never had a cupping treatment, several friends tell me they find it nice and relaxing.

“But where’s the evidence for that?” the skeptics ask; and here’s where I think the problem lies. Sometimes we fail to distinguish adequately between objective claims about fact (“this treatment will make your muscles stronger”) and subjective claims about personal experience (“I had this treatment, and it made me feel really good”). When we start to imply that people’s individual experience is invalid, or wrong, because they don’t have scientific evidence to support it – that’s when sportspeople start to complain that the scientists are arrogant, out of touch curmudgeonly killjoys.

Imagine that someone has conducted a large survey about leisure activities. Suppose the results come back, and it turns out that on average people find quiet country walks and loud, alcohol fuelled parties equally enjoyable. Does this mean that you that your introverted great aunt Agatha will be persuaded to forgo her gentle Sunday afternoon stroll in favour of accompanying you to a nightclub? Unlikely. Telling her there’s evidence that the two activities are equally enjoyable probably wouldn’t be persuasive – because enjoyment is subjective, and Aunt Agatha knows what she likes. The fact that things like pain, discomfort, pleasure and happiness are all subjective and difficult to measure isn’t a reason not to research them – but it does raise difficulties that should be taken into account. I have misgivings about measuring something as complicated as pain on a 1-10 scale, for example; but we have to start somewhere. It also means that we should be very clear about what the research does, and doesn’t, say when we apply it to individuals.

It’s not quite that simple, of course. Perhaps that athlete finds the treatment pleasant and relaxing because he’s been told it’ll have beneficial effects on his performance, when in fact this is highly questionable. The ethics of using placebo effects in top level sport – where winning and losing can be measured in milliseconds – is a subject that needs a whole separate post, but that’s not what I’m advocating here. I think it’s possible to be clear and honest about what’s known about a treatment, and to allow for a person’s individual subjective experience at the same time.

Talking openly with the athlete about why they are using a particular treatment, and being very clear about what they expect it to achieve is an important part of that process. If an athlete I’m treating tells me that she wants to use a treatment like cupping, then my first question is to ask why she’s doing it. I want her to think about what she’s likely to get out of it, and to ensure that it’s not being used instead of evidence based treatment to address any underlying problems. If it’s only giving some temporary relief, could the time and money might be better spent elsewhere? What are the risks of adverse effects, and are the benefits worth it?

As a clinician, I find that framing the conversation in this way to be a more effective way of communicating with my athletes. By taking a hard line against misleading claims but not against the practice itself (except where it’s likely to be actually harmful), it encourages the athlete to apply their own critical thinking. We talk about how athletes can monitor their own experience more methodically, to see whether particular changes to their plan have a consistent (subjective) effect or not.

Learning how to sensibly navigate the large gaps between our small islands of knowledge is something that those in high level sport constantly struggle with. No athlete can afford to use only methods that have been proven rigorously by science – despite the best efforts of sports science there is simply too little evidence out there. At the same time, it’s easy to get suckered in by the latest trendy therapy or product; when winning and losing come down to tiny margins, many athletes feel that they can’t afford to take the risk of not using something just in case it does make a difference. Applying a sceptical thought process while at the same time allowing for personal experience and individual circumstances gives a framework for evaluating these unknowns, whether it’s a “wacky” therapy like cupping, a new training method or a cortisone injection.

Two questions you should never be afraid to ask:

“What, exactly, is this supposed to achieve?”

“What reason do I have to think it can do that?”

I’ve never experienced cupping, but I did have a hot stone massage once. It was lovely. It didn’t cure my neck pain, of course (nor was I expecting it to) – but it was a very pleasant distraction from it for an hour or so. Your mileage may vary.

The many stories yesterday featuring Olympians appearing with cupping marks on their skin have brought renewed attention to pseudoscience in sports. Cupping, which involves putting a hot jar onto the skin, forming a suction that “draws out” toxins or unblocks energy meridians or something like that, might seem like a relatively benign form of pseudoscience, but it can be quite harmful. Orac has a great post (complete with a gruesome photo) describing the harms of this particular practice:

Cupping is nothing more than an ancient medical practice based on a prescientific understanding of the body and disease, much like bloodletting and treatments based on the four humors. As the case of Lin Lin shows, it’s all risk for no benefit. It has no place in modern medicine, or at least shouldn’t.

I’m completely unsurprised to find that pseudoscience is common among the elite athletes competing in the Olympics. I’ve seen similar things rampant in the combat sports world as well.

Over the course of my martial arts career, I’ve had the opportunity to train with many extraordinary MMA fighters. What I observed in these elite professional fighters–most of them either competing in the UFC, or well on their way to it–was a razor-sharp focus on doing whatever it took to improve. This meant grueling eight hour training days, and equally grueling recovery practices to allow them to sustain that level of activity. The recovery practices included ice baths, contrast showers, yoga, expensive massages and bodywork, and a whole host of alternative medical treatments including acupuncture, energy work, and dubious supplements. And behind nearly every fighter, there’s usually at least one chiropractor lurking around in background.

[My interactions with these MMA chiropractors are so similar that they almost follow a script. He (and it’s always a he) invariably introduces himself as “Dr. First Name”, even in casual social situations, and tries to impress his listeners by boasting about how many important clients he has.]

This story gets at the psychological aspects of why elite athletes pursue useless–and sometimes even harmful–alternative practices. What I’ve observed among fighters is this exact mentality. Magical thinking has long been endemic to martial arts, and there are few voices in the community who challenge these ideas, particularly when they’re promoted by influential teachers and coaches. Competitive martial artists, like MMA fighters, are so determined to do anything it takes to give themselves the extra edge that they are especially likely to listen to anyone who promises them a benefit to training, to recovery, to mental conditioning. Another important motivation is the money that fighters can make through sponserships from alt med practitioners and supplement manufacturers. These athletes make so little money from fight contracts that they can’t afford to turn down any source of additional revenue. This makes them vulnerable to all kinds of practices that are ‘desperately implausible’ , as the formidable enemy of pseudoscience David Colquhoun characterizes them.

If I sound angry here, it’s because I am. I see these quacks taking large fees from vulnerable fighters who can’t afford them…. but are convinced that they can’t afford not to pursue any possible advantage. I’ve seen creepy alt med sponsors lurking around events and attaching themselves to athletes as if they were coaches. I’ve seen more than one person in the MMA world injured by pseudoscientific ‘treatments’, and more than one athletic career ruined by supplements. This exploitation makes me furious.

I hope that as more attention is focused on pseudoscience in the Olympics, more attention will also be paid to these issues in MMA, and the work of people who are trying to push back against the BS in the community, like Rosi Sexton, and Jeff Westfall.

Tagged: cupping, martial arts, mma, Olympics, pseudoscience, quackery]]>https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/08/09/pseudoscience-is-common-among-elite-athletes-outside-of-the-olympics-too-and-it-makes-me-furious/feed/57batgirlraffSkylineScreen Shot 2016-08-09 at 9.43.06 AM#Vaxxed, reviewed: What happened outside of the movie.https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/13/vaxxed-reviewed-what-happened-outside-of-the-movie/
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/13/vaxxed-reviewed-what-happened-outside-of-the-movie/#commentsMon, 13 Jun 2016 22:33:34 +0000http://violentmetaphors.com/?p=3437Continue reading →]]>This is part II of our series on the movie “Vaxxed”, which Colin, my sister Julie, and I saw in Kansas City on June 11. In part I, Colin focused on some of the factual inaccuracies of the movie. He talked about how a person attending the movie would have walked away with an extremely distorted understanding of the CDC, a distortion deliberately encouraged by Mr. Wakefield and the makers of the documentary.

Here, I’m going to focus not so much on the documentary itself as on what happened after the documentary: what the “Vaxxed” team said during the Q&A session, how the audience responded, conversations that I had with protestors after the movie, and a conversation that Colin and I had with Mr. Wakefield.

As Colin mentioned, we were uncertain about what his reception was going to be after his interview with Mr. Wakefield on the ConspiraSea Cruise, and so Julie and I sat separately from him. (That turned out not to be an issue, and when we met Mr. Wakefield after the movie he seemed, if anything, amused to see Colin. Evidently two of the more excitable speakers on the ConspiraSea cruise, Leonard Horowitz and Sherri Kane, have been writing enthusiastically and imaginatively about how Colin is (among other things) a “spy and propagandist” and I got the distinct impression that they have been sending Mr. Wakefield (who they greatly admire) numerous screeds about Colin’s “deceptions.”)

The audience, about 150 people, was overwhelmingly anti-vaccine. They grew increasingly agitated throughout the movie. One woman in the front row repeatedly shouted things at the screen, including “DON’T GIVE YOUR KID A VACCINE, PERIOD!” (her outbursts continued through the Q&A, to the point where the theater manager had to warn her that he would ask her to leave if she continued).

“Vaxxed” audience before the start of the film.

My intention in coming to the movie and the Q&A was simply to watch, take notes, and hopefully get the chance to ask Mr. Wakefield which vaccines (if any) he thought were safe and effective, or if he thought that no vaccines were safe. I didn’t want to confront him or argue with him, and I told my sister to do the same. That plan lasted about six seconds into the Q&A when he asked “Has anyone in the audience not changed their minds on this issue after seeing our documentary?” Angry and frustrated, Julie sprang to her feet and proceeded to have rather contentious conversation with him. I was initially irritated—this was explicitly what we’d agreed not to do, and I knew I wouldn’t get the chance to ask my question now—but I couldn’t help but be proud of her for standing up and speaking her mind. The crowd was very hostile to us—shouting things like “Who’s funding you???” “She’s probably on drugs or possessed by the devil!” What they didn’t know is that Julie is a retired professional MMA fighter, totally at ease being punched in the face in front of thousands of people. She’s completely implacable in the face of hostility, and although scrupulously polite, she refused to back down. After making her views clear to Mr. Wakefield (to which he responded with what we think is a lie about how much money he made from his anti-MMR work in England), she sat down and we spent the rest of the session just listening (and receiving angry glares and a few pointed comments).

The Q&A showed the extent to which Mr. Wakefield will allow incredibly harmful and irresponsible medical advice to be shared by his colleagues without challenging it [1]. For example, when someone on the panel urged parents to go to chiropractors and naturopaths and to “stay away from pediatricians,” Mr. Wakefield sat in silence and did not disagree with this statement. When a panel member said that GMOs and vaccines damaged her child, but she can “recover” (not cure) him with supplements and correct eating, he did not disagree. When a person in the audience shouted “AIDS was created! So was cancer!” he did not disagree or challenge that statement. When a physician in the audience asked how she could support families and find them exemptions, he said “There are a lot of people here who will be coming to talk to you.” When a parent said “We see this connection (between autism and vaccines), why do they (physicians) not see it?” Mr. Wakefield responded “I think they do.” When a fellow panel member said that “The history (of vaccines) is that we’ve never needed them; sanitation, clean water are enough,” he didn’t disagree.

Strangely, when a parent explained that she didn’t want to give her child a vaccine but didn’t want to lose her pediatrician, and someone in the audience shouted “Forge the records, it’s easy to do!”, Mr. Wakefield did intervene, saying: “No, no, no, guys, you can’t just hide in the shadows anymore. OK? It’s only just dodging [inaudible] the system is fundamentally broken. Do not try and operate within the shadows of a system that is broken, the system has to be broken down completely and rebuilt.” Why did he balk at that but NOT “don’t send your kids to a pediatrician”?

This raises the question of how much of this stuff he actually believes. I can’t possibly believe that he agrees that AIDS was a manufactured disease, or some of the other crazy stuff that was said. However, I believe that he doesn’t want to alienate his audience by saying something they disagree with, and so he sits quietly no matter what is said (unless it’s blatantly illegal). During a conversation after the movie, I did get the chance to ask him if he considers any vaccine to be safe, and he refused to answer me.

I was struck by how angry the crowd was. I’ve never before encountered anything like it. To the scientific and medical community, I urge you to try to understand that these are parents who fervently believe with their entire beings that their children are the victims of a global, sinister conspiracy. This belief is all the more shocking because of its irrationality—they are wrong, but any attempt to reason with them simply drives them further into their beliefs. It was very sobering to watch Dan Kahan’s ideas of cultural cognition actually at work, to see people being driven deeper and deeper into their belief structure. And no wonder—a parent’s love for his or her child trumps all other considerations. They may be utterly, completely wrong about what the cause is, but their passions and fears need to be respected and taken seriously.

Yet at the same time I could see how the conversations of other parents, with other experiences might be effective. A parent with an autistic child whose symptoms showed up before vaccination, a parent of an immunocompromised child who cannot be vaccinated…these, too, are important and emotional stories, and they may resonate where the words of doctors and scientists don’t.

After the Q&A there was a long line in the lobby to see Mr. Wakefield and the other “Vaxxed” panel members. I wandered over to the protesters, who were all members of ASAN, the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. They were cheerful, polite, and enthusiastically having very important conversations with audience members and people from the “Vaxxed” team (some of whom were quite aggressive). I estimated that the majority of the protesters were teenagers or in their early- to mid-twenties. In talking with them, I learned that this was their very first protest. I asked several of them why they were here and got the following responses (directed at the producers of the movie):

“It’s (the movie) part of a larger cultural movement that denigrates autistic people and other people with disabilities.”

“You’ve got to (also) listen to our voices.”

“You’re using autism as a threat.”

Protestors from ASAN Kansas City, who gave me permission to use their photos.

I thought that showing up and being present to talk about their experiences—ones which many of us can’t relate to—was extremely effective and very brave. I hoped that the “Vaxxed” team members learned something from their interactions with the protestors, but unfortunately that didn’t prove to be the case. The day after the movie, the “Vaxxed” Facebook page put up a video featuring Mr. Wakefield talking to the protestors with the mocking title: “Protesters stumble over responses when questioned about why they were protesting the film.” Note that the permission of the protestors was not obtained by the social media team–in fact, they explicitly and repeatedly asked for the cameras to be turned off.

A link to the video can be found (for now at least) on Periscope here.

Sadly, the majority of comments on the “Vaxxed” Facebook page mocked the protestors or questioned their honesty, calling them “stupid”, “freaks”, “sell-outs”, “fools”, and “idiotic.” (I have obscured the names and images of people from whom I was not able to obtain permission to quote).

A few people pointed out that this was wrong.

The language employed by the “Vaxxed” social media team members and their online fans fit with the rhetoric I noticed in the movie, which was highly emotionally charged and fear-provoking. It included phrases like “lost everything” ,“didn’t ever really wake up”, “scary”, “damaged kid”. I have incredible sympathy for the parents onstage and in the crowd. They were dealing with challenges that I never will, and I can’t comprehend the stress that they’re under on a daily basis. But I have an autistic family member, and she isn’t a “damaged kid” or “scary”–she’s a bright, adorable toddler who loves dogs. The young people in the lobby weren’t “damaged” or “scary”—they were intelligent, thoughtful, passionate people. I admired them for coming out and sharing their perspectives.

I really do worry about the escalating, dehumanizing the rhetoric being used in this movie and in the anti-vaccine community. To Mr. Wakefield and his fans, please consider that no matter how you feel about the issue, these are people who you are denigrating with your hurtful language. You are damaging your own credibility by mocking them.

——————————————————————-

[1] These quotes are from notes that I took during the Q&A and are as close as possible a transcription of what was said.

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https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/13/vaxxed-reviewed-what-happened-inside-the-movie/#commentsMon, 13 Jun 2016 22:16:28 +0000http://violentmetaphors.com/?p=3522Continue reading →]]>Jennifer and I saw Vaxxed in Kansas City on June 11, along with her sister Julie. We have a lot of observations and thoughts about the movie, so we’ll probably be doing several articles discussing the film itself, the audience’s reaction to it, the protestors, our responses, and a lot more. Jenny’s post is here, and covers some of what happened after and as we left the movie.
Not exactly a full house; theater staff said about 1,100 tickets were sold for the entire week. The number may go up, but that’s consistent with the movie’s low numbers.

My first, strong reaction was that very few people leaving the movie would have any idea what happened with the “CDC Whistleblower.” The audience left knowing next to nothing about the events it’s supposedly about; I confirmed that by talking to people afterwards, and they had very little grasp on the facts.

That’s no surprise. The movie is propaganda—it’s not educational, it’s manipulative and inflammatory. We can’t fact-check every statement or point out every strategic omission in the movie, so here are some simple and obvious illustrations of how it deceives audiences.

To fans of the movie who have seen it: I don’t expect this will change your mind. I don’t think much of anything would, really; I asked people on the ConspiraSea Cruise what evidence would change their minds, and not a single person could describe evidence that would persuaded them they were wrong. (Even Wakefield gave me a roundabout, evasive response.) Doesn’t that sound like ideology to you? Even if this doesn’t change your mind, I hope it makes you think. Do you know what William Thompson really thinks about vaccines? Or about Wakefield or Hooker? Do you know what data the CDC supposedly destroyed, or whether anyone has ever found any actual problems with the study it performed? Do you know what other independent organizations have found the same thing the CDC did—a total lack of any causal connection between vaccines and autism? Most fans of the movie don’t know anything about these subjects. If it leaves you scared and angry but misinformed, doesn’t that make it propaganda? And if you think it did leave you informed, well, see how many of these facts you actually knew.

Where is William Thompson, and why did they rearrange his words?

The movie is supposedly built around the statements of William Thompson, the “CDC Whistleblower.” He didn’t participate in the film, so they used recordings of calls he made to an anti-vaccine activist named Brian Hooker. I don’t have any problem with using recordings to construct a documentary, but that’s not exactly what Vaxxed did. The filmmakers selectively edited those phone calls, splicing different comments together without preserving the original context. Without a transcript of the movie I can’t catch every instance. Fortunately Matt Carey at Left Brain, Right Brain caught such a splice in the trailer, so I was listening for it.

Early in the movie, you hear Thompson’s voice say, ““Brian, you and I don’t know each other very well. I don’t know how this is all gonna play out. You have a son with autism and I have great shame now when I meet families with kids with autism because I have been part of the problem.” It sounded like one statement to me, but I knew from reading Carey’s piece that it’s not. It’s at least three different lines, taken from different places and jammed together. You can see where two of the lines come from, in context, in Carey’s piece. I can’t tell where the other line comes from, because I couldn’t even find it in the released transcripts of the Thompson calls.

It’s not just that they edited calls together to make new statements. The creative editing also changes the meaning of what Thompson was saying. Carey explains in more detail, but for example, when Thompson says he was “part of the problem” he’s saying that he feels guilty that the CDC hasn’t done more research into a supposed (and thoroughly debunked) connection between vaccines and autism. The Vaxxed crew spins it, connecting that statement to one that makes it sound as if this is the call in which he first met Hooker (it’s not, far from it). I think they’re trying to make it sound as if Thompson’s ashamed that he and/or the CDC is somehow to blame for Hooker’s son’s autism. In the transcript, which you can see at Left Brain Right Brain, even Hooker acknowledges that’s not true.

You’d need a transcript of the movie and a lot of time to check every sound bite for other creative edits; I don’t have it. So I can’t say for sure they only did this cut-and-paste job in the first minutes of the movie. Do you think that’s the only time they did it? I don’t. I think just the only time they’ve been caught so far.

What does William Thompson believe?

Vaxxed is an angry, emotional appeal designed to get parents to avoid vaccinations. Not just the MMR, all vaccinations. In fact, the Vaxxed panel at the screening we attended explicitly urged parents to stop seeing pediatricians completely! Thompson’s voice is a major part of that appeal, the supposedly factual foundation that is supposed to make parents distrust scientists and experts.

Interviewing an attendee after the movie, I focused on asking what he thought Thompson believes about vaccines. He had no idea Thompson supports vaccination, including the MMR. Of course not. The movie is about scary music and appeals to emotion, not confusing facts.

The movie misled him. Thompson does not think that parents should avoid vaccines. I think he’d be horrified, even furious to hear his words being chopped up, edited, and used to convince parents to stay away from pediatricians altogether.

Here’s what Thompson actually said about vaccines: “I want to be absolutely clear that I believe vaccines have saved and continue to save countless lives. I would never suggest that any parent avoid vaccinating children of any race. Vaccines prevent serious diseases, and the risks associated with their administration are vastly outweighed by their individual and societal benefits.”

Thompson made that statement himself, through his own lawyers, while protected by federal laws that would make it impossible for the CDC to punish him for speaking out (not that they’ve ever done so, or even tried). So it’s not something he had to say to keep his job, he’s protected there. He said it because he believes it. Vaxxed withheld it from you because they don’t want you to know what he thinks.

I confronted Wakefield about this after the movie. He denied any responsibility for giving audiences the full story, because “that’s not what the movie was about.” He’s right. The movie was about fear and anger, but it’s hard to make people scared enough about vaccines if you tell them that the CDC Whistleblower himself says they save lives and any risks are “vastly outweighed” by the benefits. So instead of his actual beliefs, they chop up recordings of his voice and blend those edited remarks in with scary music and graphics to make you scared and angry. Then people leave not only uninformed, but misinformed, actively believing that Thompson is opposed to vaccination. It’s propaganda, and it’s intentional. Vaxxed wants parents to be angry, even if it has to mislead them to get them there.

What about his allegations? Why doesn’t anyone take them seriously?

Because the world has looked at them and decided “there’s no whistle to blow.” Vaxxed makes a big deal about the documents Thompson released to a congressman. It doesn’t reveal that Wakefield didn’t release those documents to the public. Matt Carey, the autism advocate referenced above, did that just by asking the congressman for copies. Carey, not Wakefield, made sure the documents got released. He did it because he wanted people to know what’s in them. Wakefield didn’t do it, apparently because he wants people focused on his edited and carefully massaged version of the facts instead of reading the actual documents for themselves. So what’s in them?

Nothing.

The analysis plan that Vaxxed says the researchers deviated from? See if you can go through the actual documents, or Carey’s explanation if you don’t have the time, and find where the CDC team actually deviated from the analysis plan to cover anything up. I couldn’t. And the Vaxxed team apparently couldn’t, because they use slick graphics and voiceovers instead of just showing the final analysis plan in context. For example, they play Thompson’s voice saying that he would share a “draft” analysis plan with Hooker, but we can actually look at the drafts and final plans. And what that shows is that the Vaxxed narrative is just plain wrong. The CDC didn’t decide at the last minute to dump some of the children out of the study to reduce its statistical power; as Carey points out, “the full paragraph references table included in the analysis plan made it clear that race was to be analyzed for the birth certificate sample, not the total sample as Mr. Wakefield is leading us to believe.” (He’s analyzing a slightly earlier version of Wakefield’s charges, but I think the point is the same given the charges Vaxxed made.)

As for the destroyed documents, well, here’s an interesting question: what documents were destroyed? What data did the CDC try to delete? I asked as people were leaving the theater. I asked Twitter via the #Vaxxed hashtag. I even asked Wakefield, in person, while he was speaking at the ConspiraSea Cruise with other conspiracy theorists.

I have still not received an answer. No one seems to be able to say. The person I interviewed leaving the movie didn’t know. No one on Twitter seems to know. And Wakefield didn’t know. When I asked him what data were destroyed, he seemed taken aback by the question. I don’t think it had even occurred to him. At first he said that tables were deleted from the draft study—but that’s not destroying information. (Nor is it a problem, see the bottom of this piece.) Then he said that Thompson claimed all the data were going to be destroyed, and would have been if he hadn’t saved them.

But Wakefield has the kind of reputation that makes you double-check the things he tells you. So we checked. And I’m glad we did. Here is what Thompson actually said: “All the associated MMR-Autism Study computer files have been retained on the Immunization Safety Office computer servers since the inception of the study and they continue to reside there today.”

It seems Thompson explained that the CDC team met to destroy hard copies, which is what you do when you don’t need paper copies anymore—you leave the data stored digitally and clear out the paper. He might have been afraid that the CDC would delete data from the servers, but if he was, he was wrong. Even he admits the CDC never did that, and there’s no indication they ever wanted to. (We know that because the data aren’t a problem. Even Wakefield and Hooker couldn’t gin up an analysis that actually showed a serious issue with that data. See the next section of this piece.)

So once again, the facts don’t support the terror and anger Vaxxed is trying to gin up. So they get buried, and instead the movie tries to make audiences believe that the CDC destroyed actual data. It’s not true, but it’s convenient, and over and over again Vaxxed chooses messages that are ideologically convenient over true facts.

Don’t agree with me? I hardly expect the hardcore conspiracy theorists who were screaming in passion and rage during the screening to be persuaded by this. But think for a moment: when you left the theater, did you know that Thompson didn’t participate? Did you know that he opposes the anti-vaccine mission of the film? Did you know that the filmmakers were editing the tapes of his phone calls to splice together sentences from different parts of the conversation, making them sound like a single statement? Did you know that Thompson actually recommends that parents not avoid vaccines? Did you know that he flatly stated that the study files were always stored safely on the CDC servers, and never deleted? No one I talked to knew any of these things… except Andrew Wakefield. Who decided not to share those facts with you. As he said, that’s not what the movie’s about. He was honest about that. It’s not about facts.

So why aren’t there any experts taking Brian Hooker seriously?

When I say “any experts,” I mean actual experts in this field: epidemiology, neuroscientists, development specialists, etc. And they completely reject the things Hooker and Wakefield have been claiming. That’s why the movie relies on Stephanie Seneff, a computer scientist who laughably claims 80% of boys will be autistic soon, rather than a scientist who’s actually trained to analyze this kind of data. Or Luc Montagnier, who despite some kooky ideas is a legitimate virologist—but not an expert in autism or vaccines or epidemiology, and is onscreen for about ten seconds. I don’t think they could find any actual experts in this field who would read the kind of propaganda Vaxxed uses a straight face. We know that because even the makers of Vaxxed couldn’t show real problems with the CDC’s study, when they had a chance to really scrutinize it in the scientific literature.

The ultimate question here is, was the CDC right to conclude that there’s no causal link between autism and vaccines? (It’s the same conclusion scientists everywhere reach when they study this question, too–not just the CDC.) Vaxxed relies on one in-depth analysis to challenge that claim: the work of Brian Hooker, who took Thompson’s data and wrote it up in a journal. But this isn’t Hooker’s area of expertise, and in my opinion—and the opinion of every exert I’ve seen comment on it—his re analysis was neither well-done nor reliable.

Here, for example, is an analysis of the statistical analysis Hooker did. It’s specific, detailed, and quite clear in its conclusions: “Hooker’s results have no scientific value at all.”

I would like to link to a contrary opinion from the anti-vax crowd. But I can’t find a single statistician who would defend the analysis Hooker did. Nor any epidemiologist. Nor any vaccine expert. Nor any autism expert. Nor any neurologist. The usual explanation for this is, of course, that it’s all part of the giant vaccine conspiracy. Which shows how silly conspiracy theories get; after a while, the conspiracy theorists have to assume that all the pediatricians are in on it, all the epidemiologists are in on it, all the neurologists are in on it, all the immunologists are in on it, all the WHO are in on it, all the CDC are in on it, all the federal courts are in on it, and now all the statisticians are in on it… the conspiracy theory grows to any size it has to, because the conspiracy theorist isn’t about to admit, “Wait, maybe Hooker was just wrong.” But that’s what happened here. Hooker was just wrong.

The journal that published Hooker’s paper retracted it. Not because of secret pressure because by evil pharma companies, even Wakefield admits that. When I asked Wakefield that, he said, “It was retracted on the basis that [Hooker] did not disclose a conflict of interest.” As I understand it, the conflict is that Hooker has an autistic child and went to court to try to get compensation under the theory that a vaccine caused it. He apparently decided not to tell the journal about that, which is a major ethical problem; the journal decided that was and “undeclared competing interests on the part of the author which compromised the peer review process.” (Wakefield got in similar trouble back with the Lancet paper, when he failed to disclose the massive amounts of money he was making related to attacks on the MMR vaccine.) When I asked him whether Hooker’s statistical results were any good, he pointed out that they’d passed the journal’s “rigorous criteria,” referring to the peer review process.

Again, it’s Andrew Wakefield. You’ve got to check these things. And again, I’m glad we did. What the journal actually said was that Hooker had failed to disclose a conflict of interest, and that “post-publication peer review raised concerns about the validity of the methods and statistical analysis, therefore the Editors no longer have confidence in the soundness of the findings.” So the undeclared conflict of interest wasn’t the only problem—the journal that published the paper, whose “rigorous standards” Wakefield cited, has no confidence in Hooker’s work. Oh, and when Wakefield pointed out that Hooker’s paper had passed peer review? The journal publicly stated that Hooker’s “undeclared competing interests” had “compromised the peer review process.”

Wakefield must have read the annotated interview where we caught him on this. When I asked him about it at the screening, his story had changed. His new explanation was that when the journal sent Hooker a letter about the retraction, the only problem they mentioned was that he used a single population for his analysis. That can’t be a real problem, Wakefield implied, because that’s exactly what the CDC did.

I haven’t read that letter. And I’d like to, because I’ve learned it’s very important to fact-check Wakefield’s explanations. But let’s assume he’s telling the truth about the letter—is it true that the CDC use one population for its study? Good lord, no. It used a much larger, more diverse data set. Hooker pared it down into a tiny population and that does indeed seem to have been a serious problem with his biased study.

On these statistical problems with Hooker’s work, I’m no statistician, so I can’t really follow the critique. Why do I think it’s right, then? Because Hooker and Wakefield have caved. They’d surely love to have actual published science supporting their conspiracy theory. The data just don’t support it.

So they don’t bother. Rather than publish science, they made a documentary. Documentaries don’t get the same kind of scrutiny as scientific papers, and aren’t held to the same standards of honesty and forthrightness. They can get away with things in a documentary they can’t in a published paper. (You can’t quietly edit and rearrange numbers, as they did Thompson’s voice!) So why would they even bother to try to fix that paper? Indeed, when I spoke to Wakefield at his conspiracy theory conference, he didn’t seem to care much whether Hooker’s work was valid. He hadn’t looked into the criticisms. And I’m not surprised. No research paper is going to generate standing ovations for him. He needs a movie for that.

Is Wakefield really that dishonest?

I think so. He was exhaustively investigated, had the opportunity to defend himself, and even took his accusers to court. And he lost. And lost. And lost. The facts have been beaten to death, and only die-hard conspiracy theorists think he was exonerated. (He wasn’t.)

But here’s a more personal anecdote from the screening itself. My sister-in-law, Julie, attended the screening with us. We sat separately because we thought there was some chance the Vaxxed staff would keep me out of the screening, as they did when they showed it to the conspiracy theorists on the ConspiraSea Cruise. (I’m a big conspicuous bald guy, I don’t really blend into crowds.) They didn’t, though. Instead, once the Q&A started, Wakefield asked if anyone attended the movie as a pro-vaxer and didn’t have their mind changed. I looked over and there’s Julie, bold as brass, standing up to challenge Wakefield.

Now Julie doesn’t follow this stuff very closely. She cares about science and health, but she’s not as in the weeds on the anti-vax stuff as Jenny and I are. She made a comment to Wakefield about how she’d heard that he made over $600,000 as part of his efforts to make money attacking the MMR vaccine in England. He took the opportunity to make the following self-serving speech:

“I was asked by lawyers to take part in a litigation [inaudible] in the UK, in which I worked as a medical expert, between 1996 and 2004. I, along with about 50 other experts, some working for the children, some working against the children for the pharmaceutical industry, everyone was paid. They were paid a standard rate. I was paid the same rate as everyone else, perhaps slightly less. Over the nine years, I made considerably less than the figure you quoted. All of that money that I earned, not that anyone else earned, was donated to an initiative to build a center at the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, to research and care for children with neurodevelopmental disorders and gastrointestinal injuries. Sadly that initiative failed because I was forced to leave England. So did I make any money out of it? No. Did I lose my career? Yes. Do I mind? No. [applause]” (emphasis added)

No one should have to tell you how great, decent, noble and honest they are. The truth is in their actions, and in Wakefield’s case, the numerous investigations and court cases.

A few things jumped out at me as he gave this speech. First, I was shocked that he would characterize other people as working “against the children.” Wakefield was found, after a careful investigation, to have acted with “callous disregard to pain and distress of children” and “contrary to the clinical interests” of children. Not children generally, specific children under his care. It’s a cold, ugly thing for him to smear the people who disagreed with him as working “against the children,” given his history. Similarly, I’m very skeptical of his story about the treatment center he was supposedly going to create. Wakefield has for example made serious money off of a nonprofit supposedly benefitting autistic kids; he apparently made $316,000 in one three-year period, administering just $80,000 in grant money in that time. Would this center have been a similar moneymaker for him? He’s also collaborated, directly and indirectly, with deeply scary autism profiteers like Arthur Krigsman (who lost hospital privileges for “performing medically unwarranted endoscopies on autistic children”) and the Geiers (who charged exorbitant fees to subject autistic kids to a chemical castration drug, based on a useless “junk science” theory). I don’t know what this center would have looked like, but I’m glad autistic kids in England never had to find out.

But what really struck me about this speech was the idea that he made less than $600,000 from his anti-MMR efforts in England. His denial was so carefully structured it got my lawyer senses tingling. Why focus just on the rate he was paid, when there were more sources of money flowing to him? To me, that sounds like someone hedging bets. It sounds like a tacit admission that there was a lot more money he doesn’t want to talk about.

So I went digging, based on that and a half-remembered report I read once about how the money he made was structured to go through a company in his wife’s name and other channels, rather than to him directly. What I found was that not only does that appear to be true, it looks like Wakefield made far more than he represented to the Vaxxed audience.

This isn’t my personal research. The journalist Brian Deer did the legwork on this, and did it incredibly thoroughly. Here is a table showing ₤439,553 paid to “Dr. A. Wakefield.” That’s over $800,000 in 2016 dollars. Here is a letter from Wakefield showing that he expected to bill through his wife’s company; I think it’s for the same payments, but it could be for more or different money. There’s nothing wrong with that in principle, except that he seems to have forgotten about this money when he answered Julie’s question. And that’s not all; Wakefield was a director of a company called Unigenetics, which also took money: “After Wakefield submitted a confidential report to the Legal Aid Board, Unigenetics was awarded—without checks—£800,000 of taxpayers’ money to perform polymerase chain reaction tests on bowel tissue and blood samples from children passing through Malcolm ward.” That’s well over a $1 million in 2016 dollars. So even though he told Julie he made less “considerably less” than $600,000 over nine years, it looks to me like he made considerably more. I think he just phrased his answer very carefully to make himself sound good, knowing his audience of conspiracy theorists would eat it up.

Not all of that money would have gone to Wakefield’s pockets, but that’s not all the sources of money, either. There are more stories about the money Wakefield made, and the millions upon millions he hoped to make, here and here and elsewhere. For him to cry poverty, and simultaneously declare himself a martyr for the children, is the kind of shameless hypocrisy that just makes you feel sad.

So what really happened with the CDC study?

As far as I can tell, Thompson believed there were indications in the data that African-American kids were more susceptible to autism depending on when they were vaccinated. The other authors disagreed with him, as do all the relevant experts, and he didn’t take their disagreement very well. That’s too bad, because the huge body of research on this point is very clear that all the experts were right—vaccines don’t cause autism. But Thompson took his complaint to Hooker, who tortured the data to try to prove the point. He failed, because he was wrong. Ultimately the CDC didn’t do anything wrong: they preserved their data, they followed the analysis plan, and they found (as have other unaffiliated researchers) that there’s no link between autism and vaccines. That’s why Thompson tells parents they shouldn’t avoid vaccines, and it’s why Hooker and Wakefield couldn’t put up an analysis of the paper that would withstand scrutiny by people who understand the science. And it’s why their results were consistent with the consensus of studies done by other labs and scientists around the world, who aren’t part of the CDC or even in the United States but have also found that vaccines–including the MMR–are safe and effective.

But those are the facts. And that’s not what the movie is about. It’s about making parents angry and afraid and desperate. It’s about convincing them that no vaccine is safe. It’s about convincing them to go see holistic healers and avoid pediatricians. It’s about making money. It’s about repairing Wakefield’s tattered reputation. It’s about the applause he gets when he tells an audience of conspiracy theorists that he’s a martyr for them. It’s about a lot of things.

It’s just not about facts.

Jenny’s piece is going up at the same time as mine. I think it’s interesting that we didn’t really compare notes. We just divided up general topics and wrote down our own individual impressions. I’m not surprised that we came to the same conclusions. Great minds think alike. And hers is pretty great, which is why I’m so happy and proud that today is our first wedding anniversary. It’s been a great year, even if Vaxxed tickets were a pretty crappy present.

Here are the unappreciated heroes of the Vaxxed screening–protesters from the Autistic Self Advocacy Network showing up to speak out against the movie’s treatment of autistic people. For all the abuse the Vaxxed staff and fans hurled at them, they were calm, collected, and very impressive. Their presence and demeanor did more to defuse the Vaxxed message than any blog post ever could. Thank you!]]>https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/13/vaxxed-reviewed-what-happened-inside-the-movie/feed/68kmcrober2016-06-11 17.08.332016-06-11 18.59.232016-06-11 19.56.12How to flunk out of the University of Googlehttps://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/03/how-to-flunk-out-of-the-university-of-google/
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/03/how-to-flunk-out-of-the-university-of-google/#commentsFri, 03 Jun 2016 17:42:46 +0000http://violentmetaphors.com/?p=3380Continue reading →]]>As I’m putting the (hopefully) final touches on a short textbook that I’m writing entitled “Handbook on Science Literacy”, I’ve been thinking a lot about how to recommend a person go about systematically investigating a scientific issue without having any background in it. Sure, you can learn how to read and understand a scientific article, but let’s be honest—far too many people choose instead to do a quick web search and let that settle the question. This practice works okay in some instances, but in others it produces misleading or wrong answers.

I want to share with you my strategies for flunking out of the University of Google.

This is one instance where flunking is a good thing. A graduate of the University of Google chooses to accept only information that supports his or her position, and ignores or dismisses information in conflict with it. A graduate of the University of Google will not be able to answer the question “What kind of evidence would change your mind on this subject?” It’s insidious, because once their opinions are formed in this way, they tend to identify with other people who share those opinions, and any new information that comes their way will either be accepted or rejected on the basis of which position they’ve already taken (the cultural cognition effect)

None of us want to be that kind of person.

Flunking out requires a decent amount of work, and the willingness to accept that you might be wrong about a subject from time to time. You’ll need to become more aware of your own cognitive biases, and have some strategies for overcoming them.

So as a preliminary step down the road to science literacy, I’ve put my thoughts on this together into a guide to learning about a subject in which you have no background. It’s an exercise; please don’t shortcut the process and go to Wikipedia, or you’ll miss the whole point.

How to flunk out of the University of Google.

1. Start by identifying a question that you want to find an accurate answer to, such as “Do vaccines cause autism?” or “Is genetically modified food harmful to human health?”, or “Do cell phones cause cancer?”. Try to keep this as specific as possible. Remember: one question can build upon another, but answer them one at a time.

2. Now turn that question into a testable null hypothesis. In the examples above, your hypotheses could be:

“Vaccines do not cause autism”

“Genetically modified food is not harmful to human health.”

“Cell phones do not cause cancer.”

Remember that in order to accurately answer your question, your hypothesis must be falsifiable! That is, you must be able to articulate what kind of evidence would disprove it. If you can’t, it might not be a scientific question, or you might have already made up your mind on the subject. Be honest with yourself: are you trying to find the truth on a subject, or just the kind of information you’re comfortable with?

3. Write down a few notes on what kinds of evidence would disprove your hypothesis. How would you design an experiment to collect this evidence?

5. Type key words from your hypothesis into the search bar of each page. Examine the first few pages of results from each search, taking notes summarizing what you found in each type of search. Note the type of publication and whether that publication was likely peer reviewed, as best as you can tell. Why peer review matters so much. Journals indexed on PubMed will be peer reviewed*. Books aren’t often peer reviewed, so I tend to assume they aren’t unless I know otherwise.

Here are notes on the first two results from my Google Scholar search just to give you an idea of how I do it:

Vaccines, autism, chronic inflammation: the new epidemic—book published by the National Vaccine Information Center (probably not peer reviewed)

Vaccines and autism: evidence does not support a causal association—journal article published in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics (peer reviewed)

Once you have notes summarizing your results from all three types of search engines, answer the following questions:

As best as you can tell from their titles, how many of your results support your hypothesis? How many reject your hypothesis?

How do the results of your search differ between Google Scholar, PubMed, and regular Google? Why do you think that is?

6. Now choose a few of the references you found. How many you look at is up to you, and dependent on constraints such as time, which articles are open access, which books you can actually see online or in a library, etc. Just keep in mind that if you really want accurate information on a subject, the more references you look at, the better.

Be sure to look at both references that seem to support and references that seem to refute your hypothesis. You may need to look at the abstract of journal articles to determine this. Yes, here I said you shouldn’t start with an abstact when you’re reading a paper. But in order to find relevant papers, the abstract can be very helpful!

I highly recommend that you actually take the time to carefully read through the papers. But if you’re struggling, try to focus on extracting these pieces of information from the source:

What are the authors trying to test, specifically?

What is their takeaway message?

What is the evidence they put forward to support their takeaway message?

What is the quality of the research design? Does it test a hypothesis? Does it have a large number of subjects? For medical studies, what type of study is it? Use this excellent guide to help you assess the level of evidence in a medical study

Now look at the source itself. If it’s in a journal, Google the journal and see whether it’s credible. For example, contrast the journals Lancet and Medical Hypotheses. In which do you think you’ll find more accurate information?

Now look at the authors of the papers, books, or web articles you’ve found. Do they have the appropriate expertise in the subject you’re researching? What do you find when you Google them? Are they respected by other experts who are working on the same issue? What are some of the criticisms of them that you find? Do you find those criticisms credible or troubling? Do they have any financial conflicts of interest in the subject that they’re researching such as industry positions, or products for sale on their website that purport to “cure” whatever condition they’re publishing about?

Hopefully you can now see that when you’re doing a search for information, the quality of the results matters. You’re going to get more accurate information from PubMed (or equivalent search engines in relevant disciplines) than you will from Google. You’re going to get more trustworthy, evidence-based information from peer-reviewed papers than from random websites. You’re going to get better, more reliable information from good journals than from bad journals.

7. At this stage, revisit your hypothesis. Do you think the evidence supports or rejects it? Did the evidence you find fit with the answers you gave in question 3? What specifically do you find most convincing on this issue? Why is that?

8. How would you summarize the case against the conclusions you’ve drawn? What are the flaws in the arguments advanced by that position? What evidence do they lack?

9. Finally, but perhaps most importantly: What further evidence would change your mind on this issue?

I welcome your suggestions and feedback on this guide. If you’d like to read more strategies for becoming scientifically literate, my book will be out this fall. I’ll update this post with a link to it, as soon as it’s available.

*Note that PubMed doesn’t index all peer-reviewed journals from all disciplines. You may need to substitute a different search engine for this. (I use Google Scholar a lot).

Many thanks to Colin, Dorit, and Grant for their helpful feedback on this post.

Tagged: pseudoscience, science, science literacy, university of Google]]>https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/06/03/how-to-flunk-out-of-the-university-of-google/feed/17DrRaffbatgirlraffFlunking outA Skeptic on the ConspiraSea Cruisehttps://violentmetaphors.com/2016/05/29/a-skeptic-on-the-conspirasea-cruise/
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/05/29/a-skeptic-on-the-conspirasea-cruise/#commentsMon, 30 May 2016 00:08:31 +0000http://violentmetaphors.com/?p=2281Continue reading →]]>This is an index to our posts relating to my experiences on the ConspiraSea Cruise. Eventually we’ll convert this to a permanent page and keep it updated with new pieces and media coverage. Look forward to more indices as well, covering major Violent Metaphors topics.

In January 2016, I attended the seminar-at-sea for conspiracy theorists as background research for my book, tentatively titled “The Good Fight.” Supporters generously helped offset the costs of my attendance by contributing to my crowdfunding campaign, which explains a bit of my methodology–in short, I went to listen, not to argue or disrupt.

This photo went out in our first update; at least one person on the cruise recognized the hat.

The ConspiraSea Posts

I wrote a series of posts covering the details of the cruise, one per day:

Day One: A Skeptic on the ConspiraSea CruiseAn explanation of the project and an introduction to each of the conspiracy theorists presenting on the cruise.

Day Two: Reverse the Constitutional Polarity of the Baryonic Trustee Matrix: Legal Gibberish on the ConspiraSea CruisePseudolaw, the pinstriped cousin of pseudoscience. And a quick end to my plan to withhold all criticism until after the cruise, as I see some exceptionally objectionable nonsense foisted off on an unsuspecting crowd by two speakers under indictment for serious federal crimes.

Day three: Nothing to FearHow cruisegoers reacted to me, and how I reacted to them.

Day Four: Troubled WatersA showcase of angry paranoia, as some of the conspiracy theorists misbehave.

Day Five Part One: I Just Can’t Do Another Nautical PunContinuing the story of an alarming and bizarre confrontation, and beginning the story of Andrew Wakefield’s angry lecture to me.

Day 5 Part Two: I Took the BaitAndrew Wakefield, having failed to draw in the actual journalists, springs his trap on me and reveals a core of anger under his work to suppress vaccination rates.

Day 6: You Know Who Exposes Real Conspiracies? The Media.Profiling Andrew Wakefield, Jeffrey Smith, Leonard Horowitz, Sherri Kane, and their attempts to protect their various conspiracy theories from public scrutiny.

Day 7: I FailedA personal plea to one particular conference attendee, who very nearly fell afoul of the pseudolegal nonsense being preached by Sean David Morton–a self-proclaimed legal warrior who knows how to beat the system, but got arrested by federal agents immediately upon leaving the cruise and is currently awaiting trial on serious fraud charges.

Bonus: An Interview with Andrew WakefieldIn which Andrew Wakefield grants a personal interview, and we fact-check his claims. They do not do well.

As I write additional pieces relevant to the ConspiraSea Cruise, we’ll link them here as well.

Media Coverage

The ConspiraSea Cruise itself got plenty of media coverage, as did my book project and the series of blog posts above. We’ve collected some links here and again we’ll update them when we have something to add.

Print

Anna Merlan of Jezebel wrote a brilliant piece that captured the who/what/where/when/why as well as the overall feel of the cruise. (Check out the art, too–every section heading is a dainty masterpiece.) We’re eagerly awaiting BronwynDickey‘s piece in Popular Mechanics, which should be out soon with photography from the supremely talented Dina Litovsky.

Aeon Magazine asked me to write a piece about pseudolaw, which is not as widely understood as pseudoscience. It lead to an interesting discussion in the comments about which is more dangerous, a question I’m not sure can be answered.

Wired Magazine interviewed me for a great piece that again resulted in energetic comments, a few of which demonstrated the kind of feverish paranoia that drives conspiracy theories.

Factor, a Spanish-language blog, interviewed me for a couple of pieces about the ConspiraSea Cruise. Writing about me, they said: Colin es un amor: un pacifista del escepticismo. It’s a lovely summary of my philosophy, and I try to live up to it every day.

Audio

Kylie Sturgess and I talked for an episode of the Token Skeptic podcast; it was a conversation between her home base in Australia and my hotel room in Copenhagen about a cruise from Los Angeles to Mexico. International intrigue!

Video

Nothing yet, and it’s hardly my focus. We have had a serious inquiry about the film/TV rights, though. They’re still available. Personally I suggest casting Vincent D’Onofrio as the noble, humble, brave, heroic writer. Or maybe Peter Weller.

And the Far Out

If you write about conspiracy theorists, sooner or later someone’s going to call for your “indictment for genocide by prosecutors at the International Criminal Court.” And sure enough, a couple of the people we profiled pounded out not one but several feverish attacks on my “criminal psychopathology and moral turpitude” and “obese darkness.” We appreciate the publicity, even if it’s completely inaccurate and completely goofy.

What happens if you put a group of adults together in a confined space and leave them isolated for weeks? Can they get along? Can they work together to productively carry out complex tasks, stay in shape, and conduct scientific research?

This sounds like the premise for a reality show (minus the scientific research part, which sadly doesn’t play well on television). And in a way it is: these adults are filmed every second of the day. But instead of entertainment, this project has one very serious goal: develop strategies for keeping humans healthy, sane, productive, and safe for long duration voyages into space.

The Human Exploration Research Analog (HERA) project is a critical component of NASA’s Flight Analogs Project, which carries out research on different aspects of human long-duration spaceflight. I recently visited NASA to give a talk on genetics to ISS scientists, and was able to tour the HERA facility and talk about the project with its former director, Joe Neigut. Because this isn’t the sort of thing that one gets to access on the regular Johnson Space Center tour, I asked the NASA officials if it would be all right for me to write a blog about my experiences to share with readers, and they kindly agreed, stipulating only a few restrictions on what I was allowed to share in the interests of research integrity. So here’s what I saw and what I learned.

The HERA project takes place in a re-purposed modular structure that had previously been part of a desert research project, and was later brought to a JSC warehouse.

View of the HERA facility entrance. The sleeping quarters are on the top of the upper level.

To get a sense for what it’s like inside, imagine a quarter scale version of the Hab from “The Martian” [1]. The similarities aren’t coincidental–the producers of the movie actually visited HERA when they were designing the Hab set, and took many of their ideas from it. The major difference is that HERA is a lot smaller, a lot more cramped, and it’s a functional space, so it’s a lot less aesthetic. It’s cramped, but not (I imagine) uncomfortable—there’s a normal toilet and shower in a side module, a set of exercise equipment, and what looks like very cozy sleeping bunks in the top of the main module. (I’m told that many HERA participants indeed reported them as being very comfortable).

One of the sleeping areas at the top of the HERA quarters.

The goal of the project is to provide experimental conditions that mimic actual long duration spaceflights or off-Earth missions as close as possible. P.I.s (principal investigators) doing research with HERA really want actual astronauts to be their subjects. But because astronauts are too busy with their own training, other volunteers are chosen to be as close as possible to astronauts in drive, personality, and physical fitness. And like real astronauts, the HERA participants get to design their own mission patches.

Mission patches from previous HERA project iterations.

The patch design for the upcoming HERA mission on a project computer

Once inside, HERA participants do not come out for the duration of the mission (which can run from a few days to more than a month). They are completely isolated from the rest of the world, except for voice communications with scientists and mission control personnel supervising the project.

The activities of project participants are continuously monitored by scientists and HERA Mission Control personnel in cubicles just outside the facility. There are signs everywhere reminding people outside the facility to speak quietly, so as to not distract participants from the illusion of isolation

HERA participants’ days are packed with activities and scheduled down to the minute. They’re required to do extensive training on simulators that mimic flying spacecraft or planetary rovers—just like real astronauts would during their travel. They conduct scientific experiments, do press and educational outreach, practice simulated EVAs, and work on mission-specific scenarios. The eat exactly the same food that astronauts do, and exercise as if they were combating the effects of zero gravity.

Scientific equipment and a simulator.

More simulators. These are for practicing flying spacecraft, and are incredibly immersive.

Occasional simulated events and emergencies require the teams to problem solve, or conduct repairs to components of the life support system. Of course participants aren’t in any real danger, but scenarios are designed to be as accurate as possible.

A view of the airlock module, where participants can practice a virtual EVA using an Oculus Rift.

Some of the many cameras that continuously monitor HERA participants.

As they carry out their tasks and experiments, HERA participants are constantly watched. Their interactions with each other, their performances on simulations, their reactions to various stimuli (which is the part I can’t talk about in any detail so as not to compromise research integrity), their health and physical fitness, their cognitive and psychological performance….all aspects of their lives are monitored 24/7 by the Mission Control Center and studied by P.I.s to see what lessons can be learned to apply to human long duration spaceflight in the future.

Life support systems (that provide ample opportunities for the HERA teams to solve problems).

Here and here are descriptions by HERA mission participants if you’d like to get more insights into what day to day living was like. I was incredibly impressed by how much detail and planning went into every aspect of this project, and I walked away with an absolute conviction that future missions to asteroids and Mars are going to be a reality. (More on this subject in future posts).

You can “follow” the current HERA crew on their Twitter feed. Although the crew doesn’t actually have access to the internet during their mission, they set up a script to let folks follow what is planned for them during their 30-day stay in HERA.

So would you be interested in participating in future HERA projects? I sure would—I’d volunteer in a heartbeat (assuming it was during the summer and my own research could stand to have me absent for a little while). The project is crucial to solving the problems that would inevitably arise on a long duration space mission. Getting to contribute even a small part to enabling our further exploration of space would be an incredible honor. So if you’ve got the “right stuff”, contact the JSC Test Subject Screening facility at 281-212-1492. You can also read more about the HERA project, and other Human Research Projects at NASA here.

Many thanks to Amelia Rai, Joe Neigut, and Lisa Spence for allowing me to tour HERA (best day ever!) and answering my questions.

—————————————————————————-

[1] I was curious about this. Turns out, everybody at NASA has seen that movie. The people I talked to especially loved the dust storms, which they said were very beautifully rendered.

Tagged: HERA, Journey to Mars, NASA, science, space, space exploration]]>https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/05/04/behind-the-scenes-at-nasa-the-hera-project/feed/7HERA2batgirlraffHERA1HERA2HERA3HERA4HERA5HERA6HERA7HERA8HERA9HERA10HERA11Another open thread on vaccineshttps://violentmetaphors.com/2016/04/19/another-open-thread-on-vaccines/
https://violentmetaphors.com/2016/04/19/another-open-thread-on-vaccines/#commentsTue, 19 Apr 2016 17:14:06 +0000http://violentmetaphors.com/?p=3212Continue reading →]]>IFLS has reposted my “Dear Parents” article this morning, with a very kind note (thank you!). This means that we have a lot more traffic on the site than is usual, and I want to extend my welcome to all the new followers, commenters, and curious onlookers.

I know that there are several broken links in the article. Since I wrote it about two years ago, I’ve occasionally gone back and tried to update them. But I haven’t done it recently, and today I’m pretty swamped with work and meetings. I will try to get to it throughout the day, but it may take a little while. I’m very sorry about that!Edit: Broken links should now all be updated, thanks for your patience.

The comments section of the Dear Parents article and the Open thread (both linked to in the IFLS repost) are getting extremely full, and it can be difficult to read very threaded comments. If you would like to start new comment threads here, please feel free. I only ask that you abide by the commenting policies of my site, and have patience if your comment doesn’t show up immediately–it is being held in moderation until I can get to it. I try to approve comments as fast as they come in, but there will be occasional delays.

If you write to me asking for a copy of my guide to reading scientific papers, I apologize if it takes me a few days to get it to you. Moderating comments is taking a lot of my free time today, but I will try to respond as quickly as possible.

I’ve been working on a response to some of the recent events about the Vaxxed documentary, and I believe that Colin has a piece he’s working on as well, so please check back for more throughout the week. Alternatively, you can subscribe to the blog to get email updates, like our Facebook page (see the right hand side of this post for links), or follow me or Colin on Twitter if you want notifications of new posts. As always, thank you so much for reading!